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Topic: What to do w/ raspberry puree?? (Read 3236 times)

I've got a 3lb. can of raspberry puree that I had as a backup option when brewing an oatmeal blackberry stout. (blackberry puree was back-ordered, but can I got it in time to add to secondary). I'm now wondering how to use the raspberry. I currently have on hand ingredients for a honey kolsch, including WYeast 2562. I understand that this yeast has a little bit of lactic acid tartness, so I figure that doing a raspberry kolsch is an option, almost like a fruit lambic kind of thing. Option 2 is to save the puree for a wheat beer, maybe with and American wheat yeast. Another thing I was wondering about is the suitability of WYeast 1007 German Ale for a fruit wheat beer (though I should probably be posting the question in the Yeast section).

I like the raspberry wheat idea. We do an extract raspberry wheat sometimes. Its very refreshing. We use two pounds of fresh berries per gallon of beer. Comes out really, really sour though, with hints of grapefruit. I like it but the wife sweetens it before she drinks it.

I found that less raspberries and the flavor doesn't come through. More and its too much.

We use the Muntons "pre-hopped" extract 10 lbs of fresh raspberries for a five gallon batch and a Belgian ale yeast. Though it sounds like you are a little more advanced than that.

I second the idea of using the raspberry puree for a wheat type beer. Abita purple haze comes to mind, they use a German style yeast with a wheat base and it's good stuff. Lost Coast raspberry brown is another beer, however, for some reason, it seem like raspberry's don't complement the brown style non-wheat base. The 3 times I used raspberry puree, it was in wheat based beers. 3 lbs of puree per 5 gallons produced a impressionable raspberry flavor. One of those times I even added the white labs sour mix to the the secondary and that produced some nice puckering sourness along with WLP410 Belgian Wit II Ale Yeast.

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If you don't get in over your head, how are you ever going to know how tall you are.

You might consider formulating your recipe to be on the sweet side if you're adding raspberry puree (unpleasant flashback: old Prince song from college days, but I digress). The raspberries will add significant tartness, and this can seem unbalanced in many beer styles. People are used to tasting sweetness from fruit when eating fruit, so often don't like fruit beers that ferment dry and have no sweetness. That's OK if you're going the traditional lambic route.

You might want to add some lighter crystal or caravienne to give you some extra sweetness to balance the acidity. And/or some Munich to give some maltiness and body. Acidity thins beers, so offsetting that could also help.

... raspberry puree (unpleasant flashback: old Prince song from college days, but I digress). ....You might want to add some lighter crystal or caravienne to give you some extra sweetness to balance the acidity. And/or some Munich to give some maltiness and body. Acidity thins beers, so offsetting that could also help.

The kind you find in a secondary fermenter? I've got a fair amount of 10L crystal on hand, so I'll probably use that. I'll probably do a fairly high temp partial mash, maybe 156 - 158 F. I wish I had some stale hops on hand, but will probably try to hit pretty low IBUs (does around 10 IBU sound about right?) I'm not terribly afraid of tartness; I'm OK with lambics. I'm a lot more likely to dislike beer that I find too sweet.

Sorry for being dense. I guess that's what happens when you have "she wore a raaaaas-berrrry beret" on continuous loop in your head. God, I hated that song. My only fear is that it will be replaced by something worse.